


A Punk Rock Summer Interlude

by Sunquistadora



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Minor Drug and Alcohol Use, Post Season 2, amy hangs out with some nice older queer girls who aren't compulsive liars, people talking sense about bisexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunquistadora/pseuds/Sunquistadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy goes on tour with Pussy Explosion, getting a much-needed break from high school drama, and gaining a band-full of awesome mentors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Punk Rock Summer Interlude

Amy snuffles in the van for a good five minutes before anyone says anything.

"It's okay to cry, you know," George breaks the silence from the driver’s seat. "Was that girl your ex?"

"No, my best friend...I think."

"Yeesh. Dyke drama!” Eva, all eyeliner, spikes and leather, chimes in from the back seat. Next to her, Mari hits her in the arm.

“No, but seriously hon, we've all been there,” the killer femme adds. Mari was the first girl in the band that Amy had met, and Amy had wondered how someone could look simultaneously so much like her mom’s ideal daughter and also so queer, but she’d been nothing but sweet, even when Amy was so clearly frazzled.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," Eva rolls her eyes, but softens her tone. “Mari is right though. Like, we only even had space for you because that bitch Becca split - no offense George -”

“None taken."

“- and it's not like these guys haven't had to clean up my face backstage after a shitty breakup. The audience just takes it as passion, thank fuck.”

"We didn't....break up…really.”

“But it felt like it.” Eva asserts.

Amy’s face falls and she runs her hands through her hair, trying to give herself time to answer.

“It’s okay - you don’t have to talk about it now.” George keeps her eyes on the road, but reaches a hand out to pat Amy’s arm.

Amy relaxes, resting her chin on her hands and looking over at George gratefully. “Yeah…. I..I’d rather not.”

“Let’s put some tunes on, yeah?”

Amy nods her assent, leans against the car window, closes her eyes, and lets the music resonate through her, a frantic passionate wail—

_Oh fox, is this love? Can you tell me? What is love?_

 

——

 

Amy had been shaking with nerves before their first gig. But George teased her with, _hey aren't the people on stage supposed to be the ones with stage fright?_ And Eva loaned her her "fuck off" necklace, and Mari told her, _you don't have to be worried honey - I'll look good no matter how new a photographer you are!_ before kissing her on the cheek and shoving her out of backstage and into the crowd.

It really isn’t so bad. Mostly everyone is paying attention to the band. Whenever someone looks at her, she hides behind her camera. It’s good to have a job. It makes her feel like she isn’t just the awkward one out. Soon enough Amy's surroundings fade into the back of her mind. She likes Pussy Explosion, even though she can’t always understand what they’re saying. It's true - it isn’t like any of the music she used to listen to, and she only went to the first show because Reagan wanted to - but once she got over expecting it to be melodious, she’d started getting into the rhythm and emotion of it.

She thinks she's managed to get a non-blurry photo of Mari, jumping and shredding her guitar, but whatever she has will have to do for the moment, because Pussy Explosion is just getting off stage before the next band. She turns her lens out to get a good photo of the audience and looks into the view to find - a boy pointedly pointing his lens at her.

She’s so startled she starts to laugh. He grins back and mimes for her to keep shooting. He mugs for the camera, sticks his tongue out at her, and gasps in mock shock that anyone else has a camera. Sweeping his camera up, he shoots her picture with a dramatic flourish.

"Your turn!" he shouts over the crowd and pre-recorded music, waving his camera hopefully at her.

Amy smiles. "Photographer fight!" She lets her camera fall around her neck and puts her fists up with mock ferocity. “Rawwr!” His flash goes off, and Amy brings her camera back up, still in her fighting stance.

No sooner does she see the boy’s flash again through her viewfinder than she feels a chin on her shoulder.  "Heeeey chica," Mari drawls. "We need your help moving things back to the van.”

“Oh! Right. Yes. Umm...” Amy turns back to her fellow photographer. “Uh, have a good night!"

The boy mock salutes her. “You too!” He grins again and adds, “I hope you got good pictures!”

Mari grabs her hand and pulls her towards the exit. “Cuuuuuute!”

“I guess? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t imagine there's a lot of straight guys at your shows.”

“Nooo, not really. But you know he's straight how?”

“Uh, he was flirting with me?”

“Yeah, and you were flirting too girly - I saw you - but that doesn’t mean you’re not queer.”

Amy trips over her feet, narrowly avoiding cannoning into a punk girl built like a wall.

“Hon, you know I’m bi, right?,” Mari asks, pulling Amy out of the way, and nodding her apology at the tall girl.

Amy realizes she’s doing a deer-in-the-headlights impression, and snaps out of it to shake her head in a tiny embarrassed movement that goes on longer than it needs to.

“Oh my god. There’s some shit you need to work out beyond the LG, okay?” She laughs, ruffles Amy’s hair, and heads out to find the other girls.

——

By the third night Amy thinks she's maybe getting the hang of it. Her photos of Mari had, in fact, been blurry, but all the girls had reassured her. "Eh, I like my jacket tonight better." — "That's the great thing about digital cameras though - you take a fuck ton of shots and, you know, 10 of them are good, but it didn't cost you anything. You're not going to need that many anyway - it's mostly video no? Shoot photos every other night and if you have one good shot from ever night you'll be golden." — "Yeah! And we don't mind if you're a creep and take cute backstage candids!"

So, she’s trying not to worry too much. She’s sitting at the bar - the girls, conveniently, had gotten her in the back where there was no bouncer - looking through the photos, trying to figure out what to replicate, and what “artsy choices” to never try again. (There’s a particularly heinous one on an angle that ends really awkwardly at George’s boob. Not boobs. Just one.)

"I like your shots! You're here with the band, I take it?"

Amy startles - she hadn't exactly been paying attention to her surroundings - again. Whoops. A red-headed girl in tight jeans and a black harness over her tank top is leaning against the bar, looking over her shoulder. "Oh! Yeah. Thanks, I like your..." Amy flaps her hand, "strappy thing."

"Ha thanks! Sorry though - I didn't mean to scare you! Buy you a drink to make up for it?"

"Hey, I think you might have had an ulterior motive in complimenting my pictures there!"

"Maaaaybe," the girl drawls, smiling.

 _Ha_ , Amy thinks. She’ll show Mari. She _totally_ knows when people are flirting with her.

The bartender interrupts Amy’s smug thoughts. She’s got the flirting, but zero for two on situational awareness. “What’ll you ladies be having?”

"Jamison neat, and..." the redhead turns to Amy and raises an eyebrow.

"Rum and coke?"

"And a rum and coke."

There's not a lot of people, and the bartender is prompt. Amy doesn’t even have enough time to worry about small talk before the bartender slides a pair of napkins over and sets down their drinks. The girl puts down some cash on the bar, and turns her focus to Amy. "Well, now that the important business is taken care of, I'm Shannon." She extends her hand.

"Amy." Amy grabs her hand for a handshake. Shannon shakes her hand, but instead of letting go flips Amy’s hand over and looks at her short green painted nails. "Nice manicure." Shannon winks—actually winks. Do people really do that? Amy thinks.

"Oh um... I'm not really looking for a girlfriend now. Things are," Amy laughs nervously, "um, complicated?"

"Straight girl?"

Amy looks around her, exaggeratedly. "Do I have a sign on me or something?"

"No, just a lucky guess. You said 'complicated'," Amy can hear the drawled air quoted, "so I was gonna go with that or you're on 'a break.' Don't sweat it! But if _you_ had the magical queer mind reading powers," and here she wiggles her fingers at Amy's face, " _you_ would know that _I_ know that you're on tour, you're not from around here, and chances are slim that we're running into each other after tonight."

"Oh." Amy rubs the back of her neck and blushes. "Yeah, I guess that's pretty true." Shannon smiles, sipping her whiskey, and Amy takes a big gulp of her rum and coke. It covers her long enough to work up the nerve to say, "So, since you know that I don't know anyone not on stage right now, wanna keep me company while I shoot?"

"Why, Amy! That's terribly forward of you! I'd love to."

——

 

"So Amy, didja get some good _shots_ tonight, huh?" Eva elbows her as they're packing shit into the van.

Amy turns bright red. "I...I really meant to, I mean I TRIED, but, you know, actually I think the lighting was terrible and I don't think they're going to turn out very well, you know? I'd really rather not share them 'til I have some better ones, you know?"

"Nah girl, the shit lighting just makes it artsy! Let's see em!" Eva abandons her box of cables to make grabby-hands at the camera.

Amy hugs it to her chest protectively. "No! It's all you making stupid faces!"

George busts out a big barking laugh.

Eva looks like she's holding back tears, but when Mari has to put her amp down to bury her face in her hands and mutter _dios mio_ , Eva just looses it and doubles over laughing. "Oh my god,” she manages, “Oh my god girl, you are such a shit liar!"

"What?!"

"George saw you making out with a total babe for like half the show before you disappeared! You are SO BUSTED!" Eva's speech is punctuated with laughs, and she hits Amy on the arm as she finishes.

"I'm so sorry! Really, I meant to! I just...I..."

"Got distracted?" George finishes for her, snickering.

"I..." Amy looks back and forth between the other girls.

"It's really okay," Mari says, grinning and hoisting up the amp again. "We do have other photos and other shows, you know."

"But you're not going to let me live this down are you?"

"No, honey. No we are really not."

**  
**

——

**  
**

It's three more days before they have their first night without a show, and it has been declared, in no uncertain terms, a Girls’ Night In. They’re all piled into one hotel room with two double beds. It’s a bit cramped, but it’s cozy too, and it’s nice to all be together.

They had ordered a pizza - Amy is really on board with this I Can Eat Pizza Whenever lifestyle - and the girls are sprawled around the hotel room, trying to figure out what to watch. Mari is picking out outfits for the next several days, Eva is sitting on the bed scrolling through the TV channels and pay-per-view movies, and George is flopped across her lap tamping some weed into a vaporizer.

Amy is flicking through her photos on her laptop, and trying really hard not to glance at the phone. Again. Karma hasn't called or even texted her. Not even a Facebook or tumblr like. But maybe Karma is waiting on her? She should probably call. She picks up her phone and gets off the bed, planning on stepping outside - just for a few minutes…

Eva's head snaps up. "Don't call her."

"What?! Jesus Eva! I wasn't! I just was going to...go downstairs and get some doughnuts."

"Amy, are you lying?"

"Nnnnnnyes fine. How did you even KNOW?!"

"Okay, a) it's what I would want to do, b) don't think we didn't notice you eyeing your phone and looking sad all week, and c) yeah, like you would get doughnuts when we have pizza and cheesy bread 10 minutes away. Ew."

“I CAN EAT DOUGHNUTS AT ANY TIME DON’T TEST ME!"

"Come on, how many times do we have to say you're a shit liar before you believe us?"

Amy wrinkles her nose at Eva and flops back down on the bed. "Someone distract me, then. It's too long until I can eat my sorrows."

Mari plops down on the bed next to Amy and pats her own leg. "Come here, hon."

Amy scootches over a little and settles in to let Mari pet her hair.

"Oh, can I braid your hair?" Mari asks, hands already entangled.

"I guess? I never really do anything with it - I don't know how good that'll look on me." 

"Well, you don't have to leave the room with it if you don’t like it, silly. But your hair is soooo soft and shiny and I've wanted to play with it the whole trip."

From the other bed George does her best imitation of Straight Middle Aged Man Voice. "But how _do_ lesbians have sex?"

Eva puts on her most innocent face and responds, saccharine sweet, "Oh mister, by braiding each other's hair!"

They both collapse on the bed laughing.

Mari grins. "Braiding other girls hair at sleepovers was my root!" Eva snorts at that.

Amy looks up from Mari’s lap. "...Root? Are you a tree?"

"Oh my god! Have you not seen _But I'm A Cheerleader_?!" George stares in shock.

"Nope."

"Okay, executive decision this is what we're watching this tonight."

"Is it on TV?"

"No, it's on George's computer. She watches it when she's upset,” Mari says knowingly. “And Eva joins in to drool over Clea Duvall."

"Fuck off." Eva flips her off.

"It's a great movie!" George hits the mattress.

"No one is denying that! My, you're so sensitive!"

"That sounds nice."

George nods approvingly. "Let's wait til the pizza’s here, though. I don't wanna keep pausing it."

"Hey, show us your footage in the meantime!" Mari suggests.

"Oh yeah,” Eva chimes in, “I really wanna see the pics from the third night! We looked real fuckin sweet!"

Amy buries her you face in Mari’s lap. “Ughhhhh you guys are never going to drop that are you?"

"Well mmmay...no."

"I hate you," comes the muffled reply.

"Yeah, back atcha," George crosses to room and flicks the back of Amy's head. She picks Amy's laptop up from the bed, and sits down in its place. "Now show us what you've got."

“Are we all going to fit on the bed?” Amy asks, pushing herself upright.

“I mean, sure, but it'd be better to push the beds together. George, butch it up and help me out here."

"Oh, yeah, ‘cuz you're suuuuch a delicate flower. Lazy ass," George chides Eva affectionately.

As George and Eva push the beds together, Amy crawls over to the edge of the bed and rifles through her bag, finally pulling her video camera out.

“Sneaky!” Mari smiles approvingly.

“You reminded me that I need more casual footage.”

As soon as Amy starts shooting, George starts flexing for the camera, and Eva mock-swoons onto the bed. Amy slides across the bed for a close-up on her face, and Eva cups her hands around her mouth to stage whisper, “I'm secretly fucking ripped I just like making her do shit.”

George punches her thigh, and leans back against the wall, grabbing the vaporizer from the bedside table for another hit.

"George! Hide your weed for the college entrance documentary and stick to looking hot for the camera!" Eva tilts her head up from the bed, staying otherwise firmly planted.

Mari says, "Yeah, pass it here instead."  Eva rolls her eyes, and Mari raises her eyebrows right back. "Hey, _I'm_ not on camera right now. She's gotta cut this bit anyway!"

George obligingly hands it over. "Amy, you want a hit?"

Amy hesitates, looking at the girls.

"It's fine either way," Eva, still supine, adds. "I don't do drugs, so you're in good company either way."

"It's not that, although I don't really do drugs, I mean, it's just...ugh....pot reminds me of Karma."

George laughs.

"Hey!"

"Oh god, I'm sorry, I swear I'm not laughing at you!" George runs a hand through her short hair. "It's just, you've gotta admit that's kind of funny. Like, you're a teenager at a weirdo high school and you went out with Reagan. It's not like pot is Karma's special thing, no?"

"Look, her parents got busted for selling brownies to the high schoolers out of their juice truck and they were going to go to jail but then Liam got his stupid millionaire dad to bail them out but now they're homeless and Karma's living in her juice truck and it caused a lot of problems, okay?!"

The room is silent for a second, surprised at Amy's outburst.

"Well fuck. I'm sorry—" George breaks the silence at the same time as Mari: "—Fucking white people."

"Excuse me?" Amy stares at Mari.

"Look, I'm really sorry for your friend," Mari's voice turns harder as she stares right back at Amy. "I really am, she doesn't deserve to suffer for her parents’ mistakes, and the war on drugs is bullshit that shouldn't be happening anyway -"

"Amen to that!"

"But you've got to admit that that was a really fucking stupid thing for them to do! And it's stupid in such a fucking privileged way because people of color get their lives ruined over so much less," Mari pauses to keep herself from shouting, taking the time to put the vaporizer down on the bedside table. "And then for them to literally be able to buy their way out of trouble, it just pisses me off. I'm not going to apologize for that." Mari stares Amy down.

Amy looks around the room. Eva has sat up in bed, and meets Amy's eyes, but nods her head towards Mari, so Amy turns back. She pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I...I guess I don't really ever have to think about it like that."

Mari relaxes, and seeing her relax Amy does too, letting out a sigh of relief. "Thanks. I know. And I know it's really hard to think about, like, systemic injustice when your friend's in immediate trouble. Just," she takes a breath, lightening her tone, "you're a riot girl now, right? Don't forget about politics."

Amy nods. "Okay. Friends?"

Mari smiles. "You dork, of course we're still friends. Come here," she orders, and gives Amy a quick hug and kiss on the cheek.

Saving them from prolonged awkwardness, Mari’s phone rings. "Pizza!" She springs off the bed, answering the phone on the way out the door.

The door shuts with a click, leaving a forced hush in its wake. Amy turns to George. "She doesn't hate me, right?"

"No, she really doesn't, and neither do we. Everybody has to learn sometime, and, like, for all your school’s progressive politics, at least when I was there, it was still really white, no?"

"Yeah."

Eva chimes in, "But hey! I don't think I'd heard you get angry before! That's good! It's healthy!"

"Plus, you said Karma's name!"

"Yeah, you wanna tell us more about what happened?"

"Can I have a drink first?" Amy asks, only a little pleadingly.

George laughs. "Yeah, you can have a drink first. We can even watch the movie first."

"Cool." Amy grabs a couple of beers from the mini fridge - where the pre-stocked bottles have been carefully pulled out to temporarily make room for some bottles from the 7-11.

Mari opens the door, holding pizza in one hand, and smacking Amy on the butt with the door. "Ooof!"

"Ah shit, sorry hon! Forgive me in exchange for pizza?"

"Hey, you've stepped on me a fuck-ton! Does that mean I get first slice?" Eva pops off the bed, making a dive for the pizza box.

Mari turns towards the door, blocking Eva, opens the box with her free hand, and shoves a slice into her mouth. When she turns around, pizza slice hanging from her teeth, her middle finger is waving in front of Eva's face. "Fuck you - my pizza," she growls through the cheese.

"No carnage - you'll ruin the movie," George chides from the bed, where she set up her laptop. "Get over here, I have it up and ready."

"That's what she said," Amy giggles.

"You're goddamn right she did." George waggles her eyebrows.

The girls settle on the bed, pizza box on Mari's lap and laptop resting on the end of George's outstretched legs. It doesn't take long for Amy to start waving her pizza slice at the screen excitedly.

"Ah! It’s Nicky!"

"Yeah, Natasha Lyonne is great!"

"I like her, but I think she makes Karma uncomfortable."

"You guys watch Orange is the New Black together?" George asks, eyebrow raised.

"Of course they do," Eva sighs.

"We did everything together," Amy mutters, staring at her pizza and not meeting the others' eyes. She wonders how badly that’s fucked up now.

"Of course you did, hon." Mari wipes her hand on her jeans before petting Amy's hair reassuringly.  Everyone is packed close together on the bed, and Amy doesn't think Mari minds if she leans on her a bit.

The movie is going over well, and the pizza and beer are going down fast. For the most part they eat in rapt silence, punctuated by laughs and George shushing Eva when she tries to start talking over the movie. A quarter of the way through, Amy is through half a pizza and two beers, and getting overly invested in the story. On screen Natasha Lyonne is freaking out.

_"I'm a homosexual! I'm a homosexual!"_

Despite George's tendency towards zealous shushing, Amy can't help herself. "God, I wish it were that easy," she snaps at the screen.

"Whoa whoa whoa! It is for some people, but not everyone. What's up?" Eva leans around Mari to look at Amy as George flies into action, bending over her pizza and endangering her shirt to pause the movie.

Amy frowns into her beer. "Reagan really wanted me to be a lesbian, but Karma really didn't. I don't know what I want. I just want people to stop asking me."

"Yeah?" Mari, having finished her pizza, scritches between Amy's shoulders.

"Yeah! I've liked some guys, but I don't know, you know, don't know how like-like it is. I mean, to be honest, which I guess I have to do, I don't exactly have a lot of friends and the one friend I do have, it's...maybe not a good basis to judge what is and isn't friendship or romance?"

"Yeah, that's a thing." Eva nods in understanding.

Mari keeps her hand between Amy's shoulders, rubbing soothing circles. "Look, Regan's..." Mari's eyes shift and she substitutes whatever she was going to say for, "got her own shit to work out." She squeezes Amy's shoulder. "Not every girl's gonna demand a manifesto on your identity before she’ll date you.”

"But Karma!"

From Amy's other side, George sighs. Computer safely stored on the bedside table, she turns to Amy. "Karma....Karma wanted you to be bi, yeah?"

"I...guess? We don't really like labels."

"Okay, so, let's pretend this shit is less cluttered and call it 'Karma wants you to be bi' for the moment, okay?" Amy nods. "So, _saying_ Karma wants you to be bi, maybe that's more about Karma."

Amy makes a sour face. "Why?”

"Well, maybe she feels like you're too different from her if you're you know ‘totally gay,’ or maybe if _you’re_ bi, and you like girls more than her, then she can't be really bi, or maybe she thinks if you're with a guy then another guy wouldn't be a challenge to her status as your number one girl, whereas a girl would.” George takes a sip of her beer, frowning. “Hell, maybe Karma just doesn't like you liking things that she doesn't like."

"But what if _I'm_ the thing Karma doesn't like?" Amy wails.

"Oh, honey." Mari reaches up to pet Amy's hair but only touches air, as Amy collapses face first onto George's lap. Amy buries her face into George's jeans and lets out a few choked sobs.

After a moment, Amy lifts her head up from a small but growing damp spot on the denim and looks forlornly at George. "I'm sorry, I just had a couple of drinks and she hasn't talked to me this whole time and that’s never happened, and, and - never! Like ten years never!"

The girls respond immediately, filling Amy's ears with "You have nothing to apologize for," and "Hey, it's okay, hon. It's gonna be okay." There’s more, but the words don’t really matter, just their soothing tone, and Amy lets her racing, anxious thoughts give way to their soft murmurs.

When Amy has mostly cried herself out George speaks up again. "Do you want to go back to watching the movie? I promise there's a happy ending."

——

It's late the next morning - practically afternoon - when the girls roll into the diner across the street for some much needed hangover brunch. They tuck into a booth in corner, Amy instinctively trying to hide from the light - and attention - behind her giant sunglasses.

They've been a pretty quiet bunch all morning - everyone is tired, hungry, and under-caffeinated. A pretty waitress hands them their menus, and barely gets out the word "Coffee?" before Mari responds with a vehement "YES."

"One for each of us, thanks." George sighs. "Lots of cream, lots of sugar."

Amy props her menu up in front of her like a fortress. She glances over the standard fare before mumbling, "Thanks for last night."

Next to her, Eva pushes her menu down. "No problem, mumble pants. We like you! We even like making eye contact with you!"

"Queer girls have to help each other out. It's in the contract." George nods mock-solemnly.

Amy laughs a little, running her hands through her hair, effectively hiding her face again. "No, but, like, really thanks. Even though I don't...even though I'm not sure...about stuff."

"Hey, what have we said?” Mari prods gently. “You don't have to be sure."

"Ignore everything I just said - there's not actually a contract. You can change your mind later without lying." George waves her hands, as if to erase the sentiment.

"Anyway, you're family now - you're a Pussy Explosion grrrrl!" Eva hits Amy’s arm.

"Yeah?"

Eva slides out of the booth, shrugging off her ripped up jean vest. She shoves it at Amy, urging "Put it on!"

Amy looks down at the jumble in her hands. There's several rips, held together with safety pins, a button that says "I snatch kisses and vice-versa," and "Pussy Explosion" painted in large letters on the back. She looks up at Eva, who nods for her to get on with it already.

Once Amy has maneuvered into the vest, Eva looks her up and down admiringly. "There. _Now_ you're a Pussy Explosion girl."

"Yeah, vests don't lie." George pipes up.

Mari smiles at Amy, her eyes sleepy but warm. “Do us proud, okay.”

Amy doesn't know whether to cry or laugh. She looks around the table, at this brilliant, kind, slightly hungover group of girls that had just taken her in as she was, and somehow, miraculously, liked her that way.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Amy beams at them. "I will."

——

_That good-looking fox only knew one trick_

_He could break hearts just lickety split_

_The duck knew this game she had to quit_

_And her own pond she was headed to quick_

_I'll go, I'll go and there's no looking back_

_Goodbye little fox_

_Goodbye my fox_

 

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to Ritterssport, my Alpha Beta! <3  
> Lyrics are from Sleater-Kinney's The Fox.


End file.
